


make a stab at it

by bravinto



Category: Dorohedoro
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Knifeplay, Magic, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, Trauma, and somewhat questionable methods of dealing with it, emergency gyoza, light gore, made-up sorcerer biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravinto/pseuds/bravinto
Summary: Back at the Salmanaza field, he knew this touch. Before he had time to realize what was happening, before his brain even registered it, his body already knew this touch. It knew these arms, this warmth, this hold. And a split second before his blood painted the ruins, it sang.or Risu can't be the little spoon anymore
Relationships: Aikawa/Risu (Dorohedoro), Kaiman & Nikaido & Risu, Kaiman & Risu, Kaiman/Risu (Dorohedoro), Nikaido & Risu, Risu & Asu, honestly just a step away from Kaiman/Nikaido/Risu
Comments: 37
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my first fic for Dorohedoro!  
> i didn't want to post it while still in-progress, but when the point came that i wanted to finish it on, i realized that i needed another chapter, and i didn't wanna delay posting it forever.  
> unbetaed, and concrit welcome - please tell me if anything reads funky (but don't be mean about it).

Risu woke up with a jolt and a gasp, the vicelike arms of the nightmare still reaching out from beyond, gripping him and trying to pull him back in. He kicked back, hard, and ripped himself out of the chokehold, twisted his shoulders to escape some real, strong, tangible arms wrapped around him from behind and fingers reaching for his throat.

"Let me go!" he croaked, kicked free and rolled off the bed onto the hard floor, all breath knocked out of him. 

The reality gradually set in around him, with empty beer cans, worn-out slippers and dust balls under the bed, bleak and sad light flowing from the window, pitch-black shadows in the room, and sleepy swearing coming from above. He looked up and a moment later Kaiman's head, adorned with a pillow stuck on the spikes, glared over the edge.

"The fuck, man?" he asked, voice still thick with sleep. 

"Shit," Risu rasped, fumbling with the sheet and shaking.

He saw Kaiman’s legs land on the floor and walk off towards the door; the switch clicked, and the room was lit with yellow electric light. Kaiman offered Risu his hand to hold on to and pulled him up from the ground.

"You okay, Risu?" he asked, now sounding less irritated and more concerned.

"Ugh," Risu rubbed his shoulders, aching from the struggle and impact on the wooden floor. "Thanks, 'm fine."

"Did ya have a nightmare?"

The image of Aikawa's figure disappearing into the murky distance, the feeling of struggling against a formless force that trapped and pulled him back, failing to call after Aikawa and knowing that even if he’d heard him, he wouldn't have turned back, were still fresh, and Risu shuddered. He needed to clear all that from his head, so he ventured into the creaky, littered corridor and left Kaiman's question without answer.

He washed his face in the sink, drank a glass of water to drown the queasiness that rose under his ribs, and walked around in the kitchen. The clock said half past four in the morning, and the Hole was deadly quiet and dark out there. The wooly stillness felt oddly precarious and itchy.

Kaiman with his sleepy grunts soon made his way to the kitchen as well. It was kind of annoying, and Risu didn't want to face him at that moment, which was really stupid actually, given that he'd just kicked the crap out of Kaiman's legs and hadn't even apologized for it, while Kaiman - he could tell, - was worried about him, just as Aikawa used to be. The seconds ticked by, and his back and shoulders prickled with the nervous and unhealthy kind of apprehension of the touch he knew was coming.

That's why, when Kaiman walked up to him and put an arm around him with the words "Yo, crazy legs", Risu flinched away.

"Don't touch me, okay," he said, louder and meaner than he intended.

Kaiman bared his sharp teeth, visibly stung, and let off.

"Fine, whatever."

He turned the lights on and busied himself with something on the other side of the kitchen.

Risu sat at the table, looking through the dusty window out into the grey light of early morning and still feeling slightly shaken up from his nightmare, but mostly just. Mad. It wasn't about the fact that he had been murdered, and it wasn't about how he used to feel awful thinking that Aikawa betrayed him. He was past that, he'd seen it through and found his answers and his vengeance. What made him angry now was this simple touch, a warm and friendly hug from behind.

It was such an easy gesture of tenderness. Aikawa would come up to him and drape himself over Risu's back, boneless, lazy and warm.

"Hey, support your own weight, asshole," Risu would say, but make no effort to shrug him off.

Aikawa was like a stray cat, coming and going as he pleased. And when this big and perpetually hungry cat fell asleep in your lap, you had to buckle up and endure your legs going numb, because you didn't have the heart to shoo him away for the fear of never having him visit you again. His affection was incidental but sincere, always surprising but always welcome. Risu was willing to put up with a lot just to bask in it.

Back at the Salmanaza field, he knew this touch. Before he had time to realize what was happening, before his brain even registered it, his body already knew this touch. It knew these arms, this warmth, this hold. And a split second before his blood painted the ruins, it sang.

He had forgiven, but his body hadn't, still holding a grudge against that betrayal of implicit trust. Maybe Kaiman's hugs were ruined forever now because of that. Risu clenched and unclenched his fists. There was nobody to be angry at but himself. Snapping at Kaiman would not fix anything. 

Speaking of Kaiman, the noise from the kitchenette finally caught Risu's attention, and he turned around. Kaiman was fussing about, setting up the frying pan and starting up the gas stove.

"What are you doing?" Risu asked, trying to make it sound like a peace offering.

Kaiman opened the freezer and took out something wrapped in a white plastic bag, looking hefty and frozen solid.

"I am breaking out the emergency reserve," he said seriously.

"Eh?.."

"Nikaido gave me some frozen gyoza to keep at home for emergencies. It's gonna be a far cry from fresh-made gyoza, but it will do in a pinch."

He crushed the pack in his hands, separating the individual dumplings from each other, laid them in the pan with some oil and water, and covered with the lid. Every few seconds he consulted a list that was taped to the wall above the stove. All of this was intriguing enough (and endearing enough) to break Risu out of his brooding somewhat; he came up to the kitchenette and looked over Kaiman's shoulder.

"Are those instructions?" he asked. "I thought you'd know how to cook gyoza by now, working at a restaurant and all."

"’course I do! Just makin’ sure I don’t waste these."

Risu leaned against him, wrapping an arm around his wide back as a mirror of _that_ gesture, and listened to Kaiman's tales of his work at Hungry Bug, half-complaining and half-bragging about how Nikaido drove him around with a myriad of tasks but still wouldn't let him cook for the customers. 

The room warmed up and filled with the delicious smell, the light of dawn started to sip in and colour the city landscape outside. Kaiman put the plates full of gyoza on the table, for Risu and for himself. Food was always the answer for Kaiman, just as it had been for Aikawa, the ultimate kindness that he wanted to receive - and to give, apparently. Risu took this plateful of slightly overcooked gyoza for what it was: a sentence spoken in Kaiman's love language, and sank his teeth in it.

He did feel better, after a while. They switched off the lamp, and the kitchen lost that sharp yellow contrast and the feeling of balancing on the edge. Kaiman stole a couple of gyozas from Risu’s plate after he was done with his own. The jagged horizon was tinged rose and orange now, and everything seemed way less dire than an hour before.

“Not to pry, or anything,” Kaiman said eventually, “but what had you so freaked out?”

Risu twisted the chopsticks around in his hand. Part of him wanted to explain, but he didn’t know how to put any of that into words, and also. Kaiman likely had even more beef with the past events than he did, so wouldn’t bringing it up ruin the morning that only now started to get good?..

“It was just a dream,” he said after a while. “Sorry that I kicked you.”

“Eh, whatever,” Kaiman waved dismissively, “just wanna make sure you’re alright.”

“Yeah, to be honest I’d rather just forget about it.”

“Sure. But, Risu,” Kaiman reached across the table to touch Risu’s hands, his lizard face oddly yet familiarly soft in the morning light, “from personal experience. The more you shove it back and try to ignore it, the worse it’s gonna be when it blows up in your face eventually. Just sayin’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued!


	2. Chapter 2

"Aaaaargh what the hell!" Risu yelled, rolling around on the floor. "That hurts!"

"Heheheh," Asu stood above him with a satisfied smirk. "Sorry, I just thought it would be easier if I did it quick."

Asu could be a real asshole sometimes, for a caring guy that he was. He had disappeared somewhere for two days and returned unexpectedly in the evening, a little dusty and with a small metallic funnel-shaped object in his hands. Instead of a greeting he had smiled and jammed it into the middle of Risu's stomach without any warning.

"What even is this thing!" Risu tried to pull it out, but it seemed to be stuck in his navel.

"So, I may or may not have looted a couple of abandoned clinics, since the owners were dead anyway. Most of the resources were already taken, but I knew one of these things had to be lying around," he pointed at the metallic tube. "Don't worry, it won't hurt you..."

"...it's hurting me right now!.."

"...if you leave it alone and don't jostle it too much. This technology is obsolete these days, after sorcerers have learned to do precise surgeries on hands and delicate smoke veins. But basically, this is a smoke vent."

"Eh?.."

Risu got tired of fighting with the thing and lay on the floor, panting and watching with morbid fascination as blood and smoke bubbled up lazily on the funnel opening. 

Asu crouched next to him and poked him in the side.

"Usually people would want to increase the flow of smoke itself, and fingers give the best control. For you it's different because of the nature of your magic. There is plenty of it, locked on the inside, but it won't come out unless you get murdered, so the smoke veins in your hands are probably atrophied. We'll worry about the control later, for now let's just have some of it flow out and see what you can do with it. Simple things first, like fueling smoke-powered devices and making doors."

"What, tired of picking me up from Hungry Bug all the time?"

"That, too."

This is how Risu ended up with a tube sticking out from his bellybutton and sputtering out irregular wisps of smoke (luckily, the bleeding stopped after a couple hours). They were living now in a rather nice two-storey house with white lace curtains, a balcony and a fruit garden in the back they had commandeered in the wake of the deadly downpour that killed the owners among many others. Asu salvaged what he could from his destroyed home, and Risu brought some of the things from his apartment: clothes and underwear, a sharpener for weapons, his favourite posters, several notebooks, mostly for the photos of him and Aikawa together that were left inside, empty flower pots in the hope of starting up his cactus family anew, and, in a truly pathetic display of attachment, the pillow that Aikawa slept on for the last time.

Strange how it was, and a little stupid, too, that he saw Kaiman so often, and he knew now all the things that he wanted to know about him: where he lived (a house on stilts atop the city), what he ate (gyoza, without end), how he earned his money (serving as Nikaido’s henchman), and it was an overall better deal than before; but he still thought about Aikawa a lot. Usually before sleep, because the pillow still had the traces of his smell, or maybe he just imagined it. He didn’t have outright nightmares anymore, but he had sad and dark dreams about looking for Aikawa in the long corridors of rundown buildings and rarely finding him. He tried to concentrate on the waking hours instead, sharing everyday life with Asu.

With the economy and the whole world in shambles, they mostly made a living by exchanging favours for food; with Asu's ability and Risu's strong shoulders they found side jobs both in their world and in Hole. They went to visit Nikaido and Kaiman a couple times a week, and were never allowed to leave hungry. The rest of the time was spent in training. Asu meditated a lot and practiced his smoke flow; at some point he got really into knitting and deemed it a good sign. Risu graduated from reading volumes of magic theory to attempting to use his smoke and reading even more volumes of magic theory, thanks to the house’s considerable library, sitting in antique wooden cabinets. The reading was going well, but the practice... not so much.

"Your heart isn't in it, I can see," Asu said, without lifting his eyes from the scarf he was working on (his third that week).

It was easy for Asu to say when he was a natural with his smoke and had already been a devil before. Risu scowled. The smoke would come out in a cloud out of his middle, and Risu tried time and again to make it  _ do  _ something, open a door or manifest Curse in some way, but the smoke just floated in the air, slowly dissipating into nothingness. He was sweating bullets and frankly, he was ready to tear the damned funnel out of his stomach. Maybe if his guts came out along with it, his magic would behave, for once.

“Your problem isn’t quantity or potency, you just don’t have the focus. There is a reason it’s usually the young sorcerers that succeed to ascend. They have fewer mental blocks and fewer issues all around. Too bad the Jelly headgear got lost, maybe it could be of help.”

From what Nikaido had told him, Risu knew that the helmet essentially forced your worst fears onto you, and the thought of having to face some form of Aikawa leaving him for dead amidst resentment and despair gave him shivers.

“I know what it would show me,” he said. “I just don’t know what to do about it.”

Asu ran out of yarn and tied off the thread. Then he finally looked at Risu.

"People always say to start at the beginning," he mused and reached for a new skein; his clever fingers ran over the yarn, searching for the end. "But that can be hard. I think the best thing to do is to find the weakest point, something that gives, and have a stab at it."

  
  
"So where is he, anyway?" Risu asked, leaning heavy on the scratched and slightly sticky table. "It's pretty late."

"He said he might drop by his grandpa today, so that's probably where he's at," Nikaido called back from the fridge. "Do you want another beer?"

"Aw hell, sure, let's have another round."

He ended up stranded in Hole one evening, when Asu decided he wanted the house to himself - maybe to go ape with his magic or his knitting, or maybe he was simply tired of Risu's brooding. So naturally, Risu stationed himself at Hungry Bug, eating his fill of gyoza, chatting with customers and acquaintances, and waiting for Kaiman. 

In his absence, Risu helped Nikaido around with cleaning and closing up, as well as  _ gently  _ turning away several people who wanted to be served even though the door was locked, because "The light's still on and you folks are still eating!" and demanded to speak to the manager. 

"These people never learn," Nikaido sighed after she and Risu went outside to give them the manager treatment they asked for. "That guy you just gave a black eye to? He comes after closing almost every month. One time I had Kaiman literally throw him out of the window, but he still comes over. I don't know what his deal is."

"Maybe it's his bedtime regimen?" Risu shrugged.

Nikaido laughed and offered to have drinks together.

"I have a spare key to Kaiman's house," Nikaido said. "You don't have to wait for him if he decides to stay out so late."

Risu thought hazily that he knew the way to Kaiman's place by now and surely, he wouldn't get lost in the dark labyrinth of alleyways, right? In his drunken hubris he even thought he would be able to handle the lock and key.

"Sure, gimme," he said.

"It's upstairs, I'll go get it."

Nikaido rose up but swayed and had to grip the edge of the table.

"Wow, you're wasted," Risu said. "Careful."

He offered his shoulder, even though he was no steadier on his feet by that point. 

They made their way up the stairs, holding on to each other and laughing, and stumbled into Nikaido's room. It smelled good and was kinda messy in a nice sorta way. Risu hadn't been in a lot of women's bedrooms, not even when he had to get someone's head. It'd always been some dark backstreet...

"I haven't been in a lot of women's bedrooms," he announced.

"Not with that attitude, 'course not," Nikaido giggled and started rummaging through one of the drawers. "It's gotta be here somewhere..."

But even with the lights on they didn't find the key and dropped onto the bed in defeat. Risu lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and the walls decorated with posters. After several minutes of silence Nikaido turned to him and said, very quietly:

"Risu... Are you ever... mad at me?"

He blinked, surprised at the unexpected question. After all the drunken fun they’d been having, it seemed to come out of nowhere.

"For what?"

"For... all of this," she gestured around. "That Kaiman stays in Hole and works with me. That he kept the lizard face... that he is Kaiman and not Aikawa?.."

Risu had a lot of capacity for anger and holding grudges. But he definitely wasn't about to be an asshole enough to let Nikaido - Nikaido, of all people! - apologize for anything, especially that.

"I could," he said honestly, "but I don't want to. I spent so much time being angry already, I'm tired of it. Why are you even asking this?"

"It's just, I used to be alone, you know? Just going through life on my own, and it was fine. Not easy, but fine. And then I found him. Kaiman. It felt so right. I don't know how to explain... it felt like we were meant to be partners."

Memories of his old life floated in front of Risu's eyes, blurred by time and the spins he now had because of all the beer. He also used to be alone and trudged through life as best he could, before he met Aikawa and didn't even notice how that man stole and ate his heart as easily as a poorly guarded school lunch.

"I hear you," he said. 

"When I lost Kaiman, I didn't know how to go on," Nikaido continued. "I missed him so bad... Remember when I had the devil power? I brought him back to fight, yes. But in truth, I brought him back simply because I missed him too much... So I figured, you must be missing Aikawa as much as I missed Kaiman."

Risu turned to face her properly. Her hair was messy against the blanket, her eyes were sad, and her lips were tight; he'd certainly seen that look on his own face, and he knew the feeling well. Waiting for Aikawa when he would disappear for weeks, looking for him on the Blue Night, just... a lot of missing him. He still missed Aikawa as he used to be, his handsome face and bushy eyebrows, his rare but quietly sincere words that Risu was the only one in the world for him. But having lost that, Risu found other stuff: truth, self-worth, direction. Friends. The small and spiteful thing inside of him was quiet and asleep, for once; and he realized for the first time, how much he had in common with Nikaido. Risu reached out and moved a lock of hair out of her eyes, driven by that warm feeling of drunk kinship between people who had a lot of love and a lot of grief for one and the same person.

"I did... and I do now, a bit," he said after a pause. "What we had with Aikawa was different from what I have with Kaiman, and I miss the old times sometimes. It couldn't last though, I know that. At least now I know that what we have is real. And I would much rather share him with you than with  _ that _ thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Nikaido. You're a good friend, to him and to me.”

“You too…”

The words and feelings they invoked still hung in the air. The window was open, and the grimy but alive ambience of Hole lazily floated in. The bed and the room felt really comfortable to Risu, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that neither he nor Nikaido would budge from there any time soon. She must have gotten tired of squinting against the glare of the overhead light, because she reached down to the floor, picked up a slipper, and threw it across the room at the light switch with a precise, practiced movement.

“Cool,” Risu said in the newly established darkness, impressed. “Good aim for six pints.”

“Thanks. Hey, Risu,” she said after a short pause.

“Hm?”

“Why are we always talking about Kaiman?”

“Dunno,” he sighed. “I guess, he is on our minds a lot.”

“Mmm. Aren’t we important, wonderful and sexy all on our own? Let’s talk about us.”

And why not, indeed? Kaiman was probably tired of non-stop sneezing, anyway.

“Hell yes, let’s talk about us.”

They woke up next morning to a very grumpy Kaiman who had to open up shop all on his own, but was still kind enough to bring them mineral water and hangover food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asu is a sheer delight to write, i really enjoyed it. he's the reason why this got much longer than i intended it to


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _a teeny bit of blood here~_

"Does it hurt?"

Risu and Kaiman were resting together in a lazy, sweaty pile of limbs on Kaiman's narrow bed after fooling around one afternoon, and Kaiman was poking around Risu's navel, where the tube was still firmly lodged and leaked smoke every once in a while. 

"No."

"Hehehe," Kaiman poked him in the stomach some more. "It must be connected to your smokebladder? Looks kinda gross."

His touch was gentle and inquisitive, equally pleasant and embarrassing. Risu squirmed and rose up from the bed.

"I know, and you're not helping," he complained. "Could you find a spare shirt for me to wear?.."

"Dunno, what's in it for me?"

"Hmmm. This?" Risu leaned in and kissed him on the snout.

"Alright then."

It'd been days, and there was still no trace of Asu. Risu crashed at Kaiman's place and went to Hungry Bug regularly in the hope of catching Asu there, but the guy didn't show. He could perhaps ask to use professor Kasukabe's door to go back, but it opened in the middle of the capital city square, and it would be a huge hassle getting all the way from there to his and Asu’s house. Besides, he began to suspect that Asu locked him out in order to force him to either face and solve his problems or use his smoke to create his own door. Probably both. Risu decided to stay put out of principle.

In the meantime he occupied himself helping out in the restaurant, exploring the neighbourhood, and doing lots of thinking. Eventually he needed a change of clothes, so he holed up with Kaiman for a washing day, thus subjecting himself to his friend's usual brand of callous care.

"Try this, it should fit," Kaiman dug around in one of the drawers and tossed him a dark blue t-shirt with a slightly washed out print of an axe. "I won this at the Living Dead festival, hehehe."

"Good enough," Risu said, pulled the t-shirt over his head, saw his reflection in the mirror and stopped.

Find something that gives, huh.

"Kaiman," he said. "Come here a minute."

"What? No, you come here, I'm back to bed."

"Dude, just come here, please."

Something in his voice must have carried, because Kaiman stoppen whining and quietly came over.

"Here," Risu directed and moved to stand in front of him.

Now they were both facing their reflections in the mirror, small and cracked at the corner. Something that gave in the end, was that Risu wanted to see. To see it again, what he saw when he died at Kai's hand, that tiny distorted reflection, sharpened beyond normal eyesight capability in his last moments. Maybe seeing it, feeling it again would loosen the knot that had been tightening against his ribs for the last several days. He took Kaiman's arms and placed them around himself. It was strange: so many layers of familiarity overlapping into an almost incomprehensible cacophony; stark against it - one big green scaly head. Kaiman also got taller and wider in the shoulders. Was that enough to start unravelling it all?..

"About the other night," Risu said and instantly regretted it.

Kaiman’s face fell, and his arms dropped from around Risu.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I figured, it must have been about that.”

Risu hated that sad look on him. Should have thought better about approaching the subject, or just dropped it altogether. What good was reopening those wounds? Risu turned around to face him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to keep upsetting you. Let’s forget it.”

Aikawa would have taken the out. He would have run away or laughed it off and pretended nothing was wrong. But maybe Kaiman didn’t only grow in height.

“No,” he said, standing up straighter and staring at Risu with unfamiliar intensity. “Let’s fucking do it.”

  
  
  


“The ruins,” Kaiman said in a hollow voice. "I got there before you did."

Evening set in while they got ready, and the sunset filtered through the veil of clouds, colouring everything in the room a soft and illusory shade of sepia. Kaiman stood in front of the mirror, his back turned to Risu. Risu sat on the bed with one of Kaiman’s fighting knives in his hands; he could see the black smoke flow steadily from the funnel in his stomach ever since he had started this conversation. Was to be expected, but he wasn’t gonna deal with that too now, so he stuffed the front of his T-shirt into the tube opening to bottle it up for now. He took a breath, about to begin the replay of his murder, with a twist. Perhaps it was a bad idea, but it was the only thing he could come up with: retrace the steps back to that moment and see what would happen. 

"How?" he asked. "I took the first train to Salmanaza."

"The plan was to go there on the same train," Kaiman said. "Can't tell you whose plan it even really was... I wanted to go with you to protect you, because I knew something bad was about to go down. And he, well, a different me, wanted to be there to carry it out. I didn't make it, though."

Kaiman had told him before that he had all the memories, from Ai, Aikawa, and Kai (and even some of Hole's original), but they were often disjointed and unclear about what happened when. He tended to speak of Aikawa in the first person and Kai in the third, but it slipped often from one to another. As for Ai, he was a wild card every time, maybe because that time was so long ago. 

"Why not?" Risu asked.

"Because I realized that Kai wanted to do it himself. Wasn't sure the Crosseye lieutenants would take out one of their own just like that, no questions asked, even Dokuga. Guess I really tested his loyalty that day..."

He still spoke in Kaiman's jagged voice, but there were now inflections flowing in and out, some old, familiar and dear to Risu, some strange and frightening, but all, somehow. _His_. Risu saw his shoulders rise and fall slowly, careful breaths in and out, like he was trying to be three people all at once.

"I tried to run away, then. Thought if I missed the train, if I didn't go there, then you'd be okay for at least one more day, and then I'd come up with something else. I tried so hard to stay in control, Risu, I..."

"It's alright," Risu said, mostly faking the calm and quiet, and feeling anything but. "Don't apologize, just tell me."

Kaiman turned around and gave him a look. Amidst it all, Risu was almost surprised to see the lizard face. 

"I saw the train leave, and that's when I slipped up, I guess I thought it was over, and he took over. After a bit, Dokuga showed up, said he realized his boss wasn't on the train, as he was supposed to be. He had teleportation smoke stored up, that's how we got to the ruins."

Risu rose up to his feet. The turmoil inside of him kept growing in intensity, and he felt a lump in his throat, half-ready to call the whole thing off; but Kaiman spoke with a quiet sense of urgency that made it feel like he really needed it to happen. They both did. And it was happening.

"What was next?" Risu asked.

"We hid in the ruins and waited, Dokuga and I. He had a body bag with him. We didn't talk much. Eventually, you showed up."

"How did you feel?" Risu asked, his voice cracking on the last word.

"Excited. Ready. Proud of how well I planned it."

The knife was heavy in Risu's hand. His heart beat fast, but he tried to keep his breathing steady, like Kaiman. Like all Crosseyes learned to do. He'd never been too keen on doing what they had him do: killing sorcerers in cold blood and collecting their heads, but he wasn't too sad about it either, and he knew the satisfaction of setting up a good trap. Of being a predator waiting for his victim, jumping from behind and slitting their throat. How had he gotten ambushed so easily himself? Was it the requital for all that he had done?..

"You walked up the path and stood in front of the statue," Kaiman said, his voice now a barely recognizable coarse whisper. "I remember that I wondered if you knew who it was dedicated to."

"I didn't," Risu said. "And?.."

"I made Dokuga stay back in the shadows. He realized what was gonna happen, but he didn't say anything. I drew the knife. I stepped on the path, as quiet as I could."

Risu stood near the bed, knife in his hand, looked at Kaiman and tried to imagine his own stupid, clueless back drenched in the orange evening sun. He abandoned the slippers and stalked barefoot, quick and silent, knife at the ready. He stopped right behind Kaiman. 

"And then...?"

"Yes."

The pressure was rising, the magic was clawing at Risu’s insides, and he went on with his own memories. His hands shook as he reached around Kaiman and held on close, risking a spike to the eye. He tried to cover Kaiman's mouth, fingers slipping against his teeth and snout, so he just clasped it shut and tilted him back. He held the knife to Kaiman's throat, the tip of the blade sharp and pressing into the skin right where the scales began. They were both shaking now; the knife was steady in Risu's hand, though: the practiced grip of someone who had cut too many necks before. No matter his feelings, no matter the whirlwind of magic he had inside, he knew he wouldn't hurt Kaiman. Unless he chose to.

"Almost there," Kaiman said.

His scaly face was calm and solemn in the dim glass. Risu stared into the mirror, searching for what he wanted to see, the merciless crossed eyes of a friend-killer, of a trust-breaker on his own face. Instead, his reflection looked kinda frenzied, kinda lost, and most of all - sad.

Kaiman caught his hand and moved it, just a tad, up. The blade pressed further into his neck and broke the skin. 

“Like this,” he said. 

Several drops of blood rolled from beneath the blade down his throat and stained the neckline of his t-shirt crimson.

“How did you feel?” Risu whispered.

“Pleased, satisfied. And sad.”

Risu dropped the knife and buried his face in Kaiman’s shoulder. He really couldn't take it any longer. The pain grew somewhere in the middle: maybe in the smoke organs in his stomach, or maybe in his soul. He wanted to scream, but it seemed as if somebody else’s voice tore through his throat.

His magic wailed and wallowed up, the smoke broke through the crumpled fabric of the T-shirt, and the sheer force of it blew out the tube altogether. It poured in a torrent through a hole in his stomach, but even that wasn’t enough. Risu doubled over and threw up huge clouds of smoke, half with bile and remnants of his last meal.

“Risu!..”

He was vaguely aware of Kaiman calling his name, moving about, holding him up; but most of it got drowned in the black noise.

The pressure of smoke inside of him lessened, and ebbed off eventually, leaving behind a blissful emptiness and the deep silence of oblivion.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after an embarrassingly long break... here is the conclusion!

**_I am Curse, taker of all things. I am Curse, born from marrow, from the narrow tunnels and closing walls of screaming and abused flesh. I am a promise made on blood, word broken and word fulfilled._ **

**_I gather myself up from the cracks in the wooden floor, grain to grain, and rise over the room, over the bed where my own self is laid, and over you, still shrouded in haze._ **

**_A window is thrown open, the smoke is cleared. Here in Hole, in the dusk, in the wind I stand before you again, you who drew me anew from the depth._ **

**_You have changed, but I can see through your guise - eyes fixed in fear, hand driven by the old habit to the handle of the knife, in a room too small to stagger back. Your head is warm and smooth as a pebble in between my claws, spines long and taut, teeth bare and sharp._ **

**_You have no crosses on your eyes and no blood on your hands, no surplus of lives or tricks, but it’s still you, and I see you. You have changed, and so have I. I see through your guise. The knife that you throw aside unused, willingly, clangs and rings with my words:_ **

**_“You are the one.”_ **

**_You are the one. I will take everything from you, just like you took from me. You took my life and my hope for anything good ever, and then you took my death and my pain and my revenge, all of my nothingness and spite. You took my breath, and I will take yours. I will take all that you give me and I will give it back tenfold._ **

**_I will take your heart, cut into neat pieces and stuffed into golden gyoza skins, and eat it. I will take your jaws, open and yearning for my return. Your hands, dry and clean, much gentler in action than they seem at first. Your murder knife, rusting away in the corner and your cooking knife, oiled and sated every day. Your body, big, shivering, covered with a sheen of sweat. Your breath, coming hitched directly from your lungs. Your confession and your apology. Your forgiveness. My forgiveness. My apology. I will stand behind my own head and gaze at you, taking from you and giving to you, until we are even. Until we can understand each other truly._ **

  
  
  
  


Reality had to take hold, eventually. After Risu knocked himself out with his own emotions and smoke explosion, he came to in Kaiman’s bed, fresh breeze in his face and cool water on his lips; the soft, lumpy mattress and the hard wooden bedframe under his back; the bedsheets still smelling like sweat and sex from earlier.

Kaiman was there with him, sitting on the bed; and someone else too, a shadow looming at the edge of his field of vision. Black cloak and long, ethereal skull; Risu felt exhausted and empty enough to be completely unbothered in the moment by even his own Curse staring at him across the room. It made no move to invade him, possess him, tear through him. It floated and it stared and it felt, it felt what Risu had long forgotten how to feel. 

“We’ll get some healing smoke in ya in the morning,” Kaiman said. “I patched you up, you ain’t bleeding out or anything, you should be good for now, so try to rest.”

Risu trusted him and his past life experience of ~~butchering~~ studying sorcerers. Even more so, moving and going anywhere now felt like an insurmountable task. He lay back, warm and secure in Kaiman’s arms and his care. For the first time ever, maybe, Risu was unshakably sure in anyone: almost a physical thing, like he had all of his bolts and screws pulled out, his hull taken apart and constructed anew, without that one shitty little rivet of falter. 

The window was left open. Kaiman covered him with the sheets against the chilly breeze, and Curse covered them both like a ratty black blanket.

He slept.

  
  


Medicine was one field where human technology and method of practice looked vastly different from its equivalent in the world of the sorcerers. Risu sat on a bench in a corridor with lime-coloured walls across from a woman with bird wings for arms and a beak for a mouth. He wondered how in the world they managed to treat practice victims before the healing smoke donation from the En family. The woman spared a look at him too, or rather, at a point somewhere above his head, perhaps trying to decide if Curse's skull face was a fashion statement.

Curse was quiet. It didn’t try to take control of him, like it used to; all it did was wrap itself around his back and shoulders like a coat and reach with its clawed fingers for objects that piqued its interest. Risu wanted to enjoy this newfound balance with himself without being accused of theft, so he willed it down each time through a channel he now felt open at the back of his mind. It crinkled with soft radio static and whispered to him at times of the things it read off people in the streets and hospital corridors: “ **_she is curious about you_ ** ” or “ **_he can’t decide if you are his type or not_ ** ” or “ **_they don’t care_ **”.

"Wait here, don't come into Doc's office, he has one of those statues," Kaiman had warned him and went in to make Risu's appointment, leaving him to hanging out among other visitors, breathing in the sharp and acidic smell of some disinfectant humans used in their hospitals, and gawking at their medical equipment he saw through an open door of one of the exam rooms.

He soon found himself in a room like that, too, where Vaux, a human doctor and friend of Kaiman's told him to get topless and lie down on the examination table. He tried to kick Kaiman out for privacy, but Risu didn't mind some moral support from a friend through the unfamiliar procedures, so Kaiman was allowed to stay.

Risu wondered about how well he would be able to lie down with Curse draped over his shoulders and its arms firmly across his body, but Curse just phased through the table, probably because at the end of the day it was still made of smoke.

"Professor Kasukabe knows way more about sorcerers' physiology of course, but he taught me a thing or two. Let's have a look at what you got!"

He tore off the gauze and prodded Risu's navel under a bright lamp. Curse's claws reached to take the forceps from the doctor, but Kaiman caught its hand instead and held in his.

"How bad does it hurt?"

"Barely. Stings a lil bit?.."

"Alright, the outside looks good, I'm only worried about the inside now, if there's any damage to the organs. You’d be writhing in pain if it was anything serious, though."

"You said you had a new ultrasound machine," Kaiman butted in again, despite being shoved out of the way several times. 

“Sure do, next room.”

They moved to another office down the hall where the ultrasound machine, or whatever, was to be found. The room was suspiciously filled with what looked like personal belongings - clothes and blankets on a chair in the corner, teacups and magazines on the windowsill. 

“Hey Doc,” Kaiman said, grinning as he cleared the cot of the clutter. “Do you live here?”

The doctor brittled and got red in the face, **_stung_ **.

“What do you mean here?” he yelled. “I got my own place, you know! There’s just too little help around here, since a certain someone quit last year!”

He jabbed a finger at Kaiman.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Kaiman jumped back and rubbed his chest. “Listen, I never wanted to be a nurse in the first place! I only got in to find out more about the sorcerers.”

“See?” Vaux turned to Risu as if expecting to find support there. “That’s what I have to deal with, that’s why I have to stay on call all the time. Everyone likes to come here to hang out, but nobody wants to help, huh.”

“That’s because you always bully people! Risu, this guy used to work me to the bone…”

“You are a lazy bastard, and you know it.”

“There he goes again, being all mean for no reason!”

Both parties seemed to have a point, and Risu wasn’t about to take sides, with Kaiman as his dearest friend, and Vaux holding some creepy-looking human-made instruments to his vital organs.

“So what’s the verdict, Doc?” he said to put out the argument.

Vaux picked at his bellybutton some more, looked at his screen, printed out some papers, and eventually said:

“You’re gonna be fine. Put this antiseptic and this antibiotic powder every day, and it’ll heal on its own. Come and see me again in a week.”

“Hey, what about that healing smoke, though? That’d fix him right up!” Kaiman objected.

“Yeah, but I have a hospital to run. I have people with three heads running around, and also your buddy Chaker scheduled for next month. I’m not gonna waste magic on paper cuts!”

“Hey now! -”

“Shut it, Kaiman. Risu, if you feel any worse, come to see me, and we can get Professor have a look too, before we consider popping the smoke vials. Does that sound reasonable?”

Recovering from wounds and illness on his own was nothing new to Risu who spent most of his life as a worthless piece of trash on the fringes of sorcerer society. Nobody in their right mind would waste healing smoke on him; and saving up the good stuff made sense. Really, even having a trained professional have a look at him without resorting to bribes or threats felt like a dramatic novelty. And now the shadow wrapped around his back whispered in his mind and let him know without a doubt that Vaux wasn't denying him the quick heal to be an asshole and only had the best interests of all his patients at heart, and that Kaiman, who was still whining and arguing his case, really cared. When Curse broke free from him the night before, it didn't just open up the smoke ducts in his body, it also released some deep-rooted anxiety he hadn't even known he had.

"Works for me," he said.

  
  


Strange how the flow of life is always taking you forward. Even after the most momentous events - if you survive them, - the everyday routine always triumphs, eventually. As surreal as the previous night had been, by the next afternoon Risu felt that he was beginning to settle in the new normal. After the hospital he and Kaiman went to Hungry Bug, where everyone gawked at Curse with curiosity and eagerly tested its ability to precisely catch from the air anything thrown at it and seamlessly toss it back. Nikaido talked non stop about their skyrocketing chances in some upcoming sports game (“ **_happy for you_ ** ”), Thirteen shied away from Risu but kept throwing eager glances (“ **_thinks I look cool_ ** ”), Dokuga and Tetsujo, who had shown up for their shift, took a lot of interest in the change that Curse had undergone from the last time they had seen it (“ **_raw, envious, inspired_ **”). A lot of gyoza was eaten and very little actual work was done, but the great thing about life in Hole was that people could be as productive or unproductive as they wanted.

Eventually, Risu and Kaiman ended up where they started: in Kaiman’s dusty bedroom in a house built on stilts, with its creaky floor and weeks old empty beer cans. They sat cross-legged on the bed in the dark and talked.

“So what else can it do now?" Kaiman asked, pointing at Curse’s skull on top of Risu’s head.

“I’ll try to make a door tomorrow. I need to get back at Asu for stranding me like that. And tell him that he was right."

“Heh. Practicing with him has been good for ya, eh?”

“Yeah. He keeps telling me that I need to embrace my feelings. It’s hard because it’s very embarrassing. But what you did for me yesterday - I needed that even more than I realized. So, thank you.”

“No prob, dude.” Kaiman said with a smile in his voice, **_calm and easy_ **.

Risu looked at him. Evening lights gave Kaiman’s smooth scaly head a soft glimmer in the twilight. His eyes were half-closed, and he leaned against the wall like he trusted it completely to hold his weight. Risu didn’t need Curse to murmur in his brain how Kaiman felt about him. About all of it. He’d said it and showed it himself.

Risu moved a bit closer and rested his shoulder against Kaiman’s. He had a squeezy feeling in his chest; not tight and drowning like before, more like the achingly soursweet taste of a slightly bruised apple. It felt like here, in the quiet after the storm, they could share the little things, too.

“You know, I didn’t believe I had a future,” he said. “I’d never admit it back then, but really I lived mostly for death. I just dragged myself from one day to the next. When I’d get into fights I half-hoped that someone would finally cut me down and _then_. Dunno. I would finally get the last word in?..” he shrugged. Curse slid over his back like a silky cloak. “Maybe I knew somewhere deep down about Curse, or maybe it grew to be the way it was because of what I did. It’s still hard to wrap my mind around that it is also me somehow. Well - you know.”

“Yeah,” Kaiman sighed. 

“So it was all the same shitty deal over and over again, I felt like scum and I acted like scum, I did Crosseyes’ dirty work for money and for the promise that one day I could hurt someone the same way I’d been hurt, until the only thing I could feel anymore was just anger. And then you showed up…”

“Partner.”

“Partner. Yeah. I could hardly believe that you were in my life. I could hardly believe that we made plans to go to the next Blue Night together - I kept thinking about how one day you were gonna realize that I wasn’t worth it and that I was only gonna drag you down, and that you would leave eventually.”

“Heh,” The gust of Kaiman’s breath tickled Risu’s face. “Same. I wanted it to be real… so much. But deep down I knew it was only gonna reveal me for the fraud that I was.”

They sat for a while in silence and the ambience of melancholy kinship.

“Yeah,” Risu said after a long minute. “I had no illusions about my life. So when I discovered I had rare magic it was like I had a hope for the first time. That maybe I could still live and that I’d be a partner for you that you’d be proud of. And I really... I - maybe I would’ve been fine with dying any other time, any other way. Just not when I suddenly had so much to lose.”

“Sorry,” Kaiman said quietly.

Risu’s breath hitched, and he felt Curse tighten its hold of him, as if it wanted to swell up and flood the room again. Easy, he thought, it is all just echoes now. He reached for Kaiman’s hand and linked their fingers together.

“You don’t have to apologise anymore. I forgive you. I should have said that earlier. I think I forgave you back when you told me your story. And Kaiman. I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“Eh… dunno. Everything. That I fed my spite so much that it turned on me and ate me up. And that I didn’t know how to help you.”

“You helped.”

“And that I made you relive it last night.”

“‘S okay.”

He said it so simply, like it really was okay, like past regrets were letting their hold of them. Perhaps all that they have been through was worth it for this moment.

“C’mere."

He pulled at Kaiman until he turned and lay halfway in his lap. His black eyes traced from Curse down Risu’s face and settled at last on his lips. A thought bubbled up and surprised Risu: it occurred to him at that moment that maybe Kaiman was cuter than Aikawa used to be. The peculiar feeling of double vision Risu had since the night before started to blur together and came whole. He kissed Kaiman on the forehead, a different kind of tension slowly rising between them. Risu's heart was lighter after the conversation, but he wasn’t done talking for the night.

He told him how he wanted to touch him all over with Curse’s long hands and unravel him under its opaque hide. How he wanted to learn him again with all of his senses, old and new, and make a home inside of him. How he wanted Kaiman behind him over and over, until the feeling got burnt into Risu’s body and covered the ugly and confusing memories, until this man’s heat at his back and hands over his throat only meant one thing. Until they could sleep through the night, knowing that as changed and split as they both were, they would always recognize each other as

  
  
 **_kin_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of this chapter was written and edited when i had fever, so please know that both good and clunky things about it were all thanks to that!  
> that is all for this fic, thank you for reading and commenting! <3


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